In This Issue: Ensuring High-Quality Care
From the
Chief Research and Development Officer
Over the past two years, in an effort to improve the timeliness and impact of research on VA health care, our Health Services Research and Development Service has developed innovative funding programs that focus on collaboration and partnerships. The idea is that researchers working together with health care managers, frontline doctors and nurses, patients, and other stakeholders from the early development stages of a research project will generate findings that are targeted, practical, and more readily implemented into clinical practice.
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New Initiatives
A new model called Collaborative Research to Enhance and Advance Transformation and Excellence (CREATE) is leading the way in forging partnerships between VA researchers and national clinical program offices. Read about two CREATE initiatives that focus, respectively, on rural Veterans and mental health care; and on communication among primary care team members.
VA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced in September 2014 a five-year, $21.7-million quality-improvement initiative to explore non-drug approaches to managing pain and related health conditions such as PTSD, drug abuse, and poor sleep.
A Chat with Our Experts
Clinician-researcher Dr. Hardeep Singh, with the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston and Baylor College of Medicine, is a nationally recognized expert in patient-safety issues related to electronic health records. In an interview with VARQU, he provides insight into the challenges and opportunities posed by EHRs.
Noteworthy Publications
Intensive care unit (ICU) telemedicine has been promoted as a way to improve access to intensive care specialists, and thereby improve patient outcomes. However, a study led by Dr. Boulos S. Nassar of the Iowa City VA Health Care System raises questions about the effectiveness of this approach.
Researchers with VA's Office of Rural Health and the University of Colorado conducted a first-of-its-kind study of the population demographics and health care needs of female Veterans enrolled in VA care.
VA now has Patient-Aligned Care Teams (PACTs) at all of its 150 hospitals and 820 community-based outpatient clinics. A July 2014 supplement to the Journal of General Internal Medicine featured 19 articles that shared lessons learned by researchers and their clinical policy partners during the early stages of PACT implementation.
Scans used to diagnose lung cancer may not be accurate in areas with infectious lung disease
FDG-PET scans are often used in combination with CT scans to diagnose lung cancer. A team from VA's Tennessee Valley Health Care System and Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville found that the method is not as good at detecting lung cancer in regions where there is endemic infectious lung disease, compared with regions where such disease is not widespread.
Videoteleconferencing matches in-person treatment for Veterans with PTSD
VA researchers based in Hawaii showed that videoteleconferencing is a safe and effective way to increase access to specialty mental health care for residents of rural or remote areas.
See also
Honorable Mentions
